"Good afternoon. This year we celebrate our fourth annual First Ladies Luncheon and it's my great honor to give my warmest welcome to the First Ladies and distinguished guests present today. A special welcome to Mrs. Ban Ki Moon who has supported F4D since the beginning and without whom we could not do what we do.

I feel more and more committed to F4D as time passes. In fact, this has almost taken over my daily job as editor of Vogue Italia and L’Uomo Vogue. F4D has basically become my second job. A job that has become part of my daily life and my thoughts.

When I started as Goodwill ambassador, invited by the founder and President Evie Evangelou, my goal was to try to find jobs for women in developing countries (as well as creating fundraising and awareness) using the most powerful tool I have – fashion.

As a fashion editor I know far too well that today most manufacturing brands and consumers have become very good at divorcing fashion from the fact that it has been made by an army of living, breathing human beings. Most of them living in your countries.

Fashion is a huge, powerful tool for development – it has historically been so and it has to continue to be. This is why I thought that the easiest way was to find international brands that could produce in developing nations and produce them well – in terms of quality and in terms of respecting the dignity of the people who work at the end of the supply chain. I started with awareness and fundraising in partnership with big brands like Procter & Gamble that through beauty products support the beauty of the women raising funds for a better life in developing countries, Lavazza that producing sustainable coffee in Tanzania and Ethiopia has given work to women to produce their packaging, and lately San Pellegrino that for the 50th Anniversary of Vogue has created a special bottle and donated funds for women and kids.

To find brands that can produce in these countries has been my priority since the beginning. So far, I am incredibly proud that we have succeeded in improving laboratories in countries such Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. We have opened a school /laboratory in Bali, to teach young people how to preserve their best traditions in embroidery and to have jobs that are sustainable and guarantee them a fair salary.

But it can’t stop here. I also soon realized that production without proper distribution did not make sense. How to support local and international distribution that could guarantee a long term business and a sustainable business development? So we organized in Milan (twice a year) and in Dubai (once a year) an exhibition of young talents who came from some of the developing countries - to give them visibility and the possibility to meet buyers.

And the buyers came! We formed a partnership with Yoox - a very famous ecommerce platform which distributes worldwide, where products from these young talents are featured and sold everywhere in the world.

These young designers sell amazingly beautiful clothes which have strong stories – including the dignity of the people who produce them, who must have guaranteed a proper salary. What does it mean to have a proper salary?

Do you realize that when you buy a dress at $16 – there is a minimum mark up of 2.2%, so it cost much much less to produce it. Now, if you include the cost of the fabric, the cost of shipment and so on – you easily understand that in the middle there is a human being who has been forced to accept a compromise in order to survive. Is this development or being stuck in a constant circle of poverty?

This is what we, F4D and with the help of all of you first ladies can do. But this is not the point of today.

The point is that, by having known brand producing in these workshops we must help guarantee salaries. We can also create a local generation of Talents who can grow in their own countries, become a brand themselves and have the production done in their own countries. That was Italy after the war! And today fashion is the second largest item of Italy’s economy. My concern about the future of a sustainable work became a priority.

I started working with another big organization affiliated with the UN which involves development through the industry of fashion and is led by Arancha Gonzáles and Simone Cipriani. With ethical fashion initiatives they are doing an incredible work creating jobs in a fair way in Africa, Haiti and Latin America They have laboratories and factories and work with global brands such as Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood and many others.

I know Fashion is the most incredible tool we have to create awareness and jobs. It is an industry that employs 6 billion people worldwide. We all get dressed in the morning and therefore all have a power to make sure fashion is a force for good.

Through local designers, creative people and producers can we build up something very important for the economy. All of you who are leaders of your countries and have the power to make things happen must support plans of investments in your countries, believe in the empowerment of your women – they are the strength of the family, the ones to work hard and the ones to raise the children, who are the future of your countries.

We, all together, must support a New generation to guarantee the success of our countries. This is the investment we all have to make for a brighter future.